The Bridge of Asses

Euclid’s fifth proposition in the first book of his Elements (that the base angles in an isosceles triangle are equal) may have been named the Bridge of Asses (Latin: Pons Asinorum) for medieval students who, clearly not destined to cross over into more abstract mathematics, had difficulty understanding the proof—or even the need for the proof. An alternative name for this famous theorem was Elefuga, which Roger Bacon, writing circa ad 1250, derived from Greek words indicating “escape from misery.” Medieval schoolboys did not usually go beyond the Bridge of Asses, which thus marked their last obstruction before liberation from the Elements.

We are given that ΔABC is an isosceles triangle—that is, that AB = AC.

Extend sides AB and AC indefinitely away from A.

With a compass centred on A and open to a distance larger than AB, mark off AD on AB extended and AE on AC extended so that AD = AE.

∠DAC = ∠EAB, because it is the same angle.

Therefore, ΔDAC ≅ ΔEAB; that is, all the corresponding sides and angles of the two triangles are equal. By imagining one triangle to be superimposed on another, Euclid argued that the two are congruent if two sides and the included angle of one triangle are equal to the corresponding two sides and included angle of the other triangle (known as the side-angle-side theorem).